row row row your boat

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Marsman, Jun 23, 2019.

  1. Marsman

    Marsman Well-Known Member

    It's a beautiful day in The Netherlands and I am going sailing in about an hour so it's appropriate to show my new coin with boat :)

    Another one on my wish list for quite some time. It's a Fonteius coin. Love the Janus head and the galley. Wonderful type !

    Some interesting information about this family is available on Wikipedia
    (abbreviated):

    "The gens Fonteia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned toward the end of the third century BC.
    Cicero mentions that the Fonteii came originally from Tusculum. It was one of the most distinguished families. The Fonteii claimed descent from Fontus, the son of Janus. A two-faced head appears on a coin of Gaius Fonteius which supposed to be the head of Janus, in reference to this tradition. But as Janus is always represented in later times with a beard, others say that the two heads refer to the Dioscuri, who were worshipped at Tusculum with especial honours."

    Please show me your boat :)

    Fonteius.png

    C Fonteius denarius.
    114-113 BC.
    3.71g, 19mm
    Obv. Janiform head of the Dioscuri, control letter left, * right
    Rev. C FONT, galley with pilot and three oarsman, ROMA in ex.
    Cr290/1, Syd 555.

    The galley is a reference to Telegonus, son of Ulysses and founder of Tusculum.
     
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  3. Sallent

    Sallent Live long and prosper

    That's a real beauty. Good write up too. I got one about a month or so ago.

    CAz2x8jY7YNypG4r65wX6SWokiW3kJ.jpg
     
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  4. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I have long been a fan of this type. It must have seemed quite strange to people in that time of so many Roma and chariot or Dioscuri designs.
    r12350bb2329.jpg

    However, my favorite Fonteius family boat came a few years later when Manius gave us the 3/4 perspective galley with a personable face on the boat and showed oars on both sides. This was really a step forward in Roman art of the day. I was drawn to this by Bing whose better specimen really attracted me. The obverse heads are the Dioscuri.
    r12760fd3300.jpg
     
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  5. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    Wikipedia has a short bit on the two men:
    • Gaius Fonteius, triumvir monetalis in 114 or 113 BC. He was then legate of the praetor Gnaeus Servilius Caepio, with whom he was slain in a popular tumult at Asculum in Picenum on the breaking out of the Social War in 90.
    • Manius Fonteius, triumvir monetalis in 108 or 107 BC, probably a brother or cousin of Gaius Fonteius, the moneyer of c.114.
    Later coins of the family jumped ship and gave us the goat but that belongs in another post rather than here
    .
    r14960bb0764.jpg
    • Manius Fonteius C. f., triumvir monetalis in 85 BC. He was possibly the military tribune named on a denarius of Publius Fonteius Capito in 55.
    r27310fd3279.jpg

    Boat or no boat, this family did not believe in boring coins.
     
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  6. Bing

    Bing Illegitimi non carborundum Supporter

  7. Marsman

    Marsman Well-Known Member

  8. Bing

    Bing Illegitimi non carborundum Supporter

    Thank you. I was lucky twice. First, to find the coin for sale, and second I got it at a decent price.
     
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